The present invention concerns data-management systems, particularly battery-powered computer systems that include optical-disc drives.
In recent years, computer systems have evolved into multi-media systems replete with fantastically fast microprocessors, color graphic displays, and stereo speakers. These systems also typically include an optical-disk drive for reading optical disks bearing digital data representative of text, audio, and video information. Although these drives typically read compact-disk-read-only-memories (CD-ROMs), the drives in more advanced systems additionally read digital-versatile-disk ROMs, otherwise known as DVD-ROMs or DVDs for short. A single DVD stores about 5 billion bytes of data, which is approximately seven times more data than a CD-ROM stores. (A byte is 8 bits, and a bit is a one or a zero.) This greater storage capacity enables a single DVD to store an entire two-hour movie.
Today, even portable computer systems, such as laptop and notebook computers, offer these multi-media capabilities. Some of these portable systems, which are battery-powered, even include drives that read DVDs, enabling users to watch DVD movies anywhere they can take their computers.
However, watching a complete two-hour movie on a battery-powered computer has at least one troublesome drawback: The battery packs in most of these portable systems run out of power before completion of the movie. When this happens, the typical procedure for resuming playback is to recharge or replace a battery pack, restart DVD playback at the beginning, and fast-forward to the approximate position where playback was interrupted. Unfortunately, fast-forwarding to this position is not only inconvenient but wastes time and battery power. Therefore, there is a need for a convenient DVD playback system and method that avoids wasting-time and power when resuming play after interruption.
To address these and other needs, the present invention provides a method, software, and a system which records playback position data before a playback interruption and then allows resumption of playback at the recorded playback position. Thus, the present invention saves the time and power that conventional systems would require for the resumption of playback after an interruption.
In one embodiment, recorded playback position refers to a specific portion of an optical disk, and in other embodiments it refers more generally to an address or region of any data-storage medium. Thus, the invention provides fast and efficient recovery for interruptions of both DVD movie playback and general data-transfer operations. Other embodiments, aspects, and advantages of the invention will become apparent after considering the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description.